Its costly, but I am still a Roxio Toast fan(Easy CD Creator for Windows ppl). My favorite CD burning program that doesn't do on the fly MP3 conversion is CloneCD, which is good for sharing the "love" with friends.

I've found Nero to be the most accurate ripper and burner of the apps I've tried. That said, the user interface is pretty basic and not particularly well designed. Easy CD is OK (v. 4 anyway, don't know about the newer versions) but it's CD ripping is poor.

-cough-
Ok, Nero is a good burning program, but for CD-ripping and MP3 creation there are better choices. Like Exact Audio Copy and Lame. Nero can still create sub-par MP3 files, according to what I've read.
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/Kimmo

"If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
"Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area." -- "BlackAdder 4"

Just a note: if you are using Windows 2k, do NOT install Roxio EZ CD Creator 5 Platinum or otherwise.. it will mess you up.. BADLY! There are three patches on their website that help "fix" this but none of them overcome the problem altogether.

Ok guys here's a problem for you...since I was having problems with EZCD 4.05 in Win2K I tried to uninstally it. Of course it did uninstall but it took the CD burner with it out of spite. From reading the roxio site this is a common "feature" of this lovely software and they provided a "fix" that put back the registry enteries that EZCD modified. Well thats all fine and dandy if it worked but of course it didn't. So now I'm left with a PC that has my burner installed and reconized my windows but it refuses to load the driver...any suggestions?
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http://www.attcanada.ca/~itisi

CD drives going AWOL in W2K is not something totally uncommon. It's happened to me a few times (both CD and CD-RW at the same time). All I did was deinstall the drive in Device Manager, reboot and let the OS reinstall the drivers.
However that wasn't linked to Easy CD (which I keep on the system but rarely use), so your mileage may vary.quote: PC that has my burner installed and reconized my windows but it refuses to load the driver...any suggestions?[/quote]
I'm not clear on what you mean by this Andrew. Can you see the drive in Windows Explorer and Device Manager OK?
------------------"One does not simply walk into Mordor."Rob's Place[Edited last by Rob Gillespie on September 06, 2001 at 11:53 AM]

I have Nero, CDRWin, CloneCD, EZ CD 5 and DiscJuggler all installed on my machine currently (mostly demos which limit my 2x drive to 1x so no big lose). I use EZ CD for day to day data and audio burning and the others for any specialty task I may require them for. I've had no problems with EZCD 5 after getting it's problem with 2000/XP worked out and find it easiest to use. Nero's interface I find far too clumsy.
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Rob if I uninstall the burner and reboot windows detects the drive but if you look in the device manager its got a yellow explination mark which says that its has failed to load the drivers. I'm going to try loading the EZ CD software again through a networked CDROM and see if that fixes it...
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http://www.attcanada.ca/~itisi

Have you tried reinstalling the drivers via Device Manager?
If you bring up the properties for the device marked with yellow, there'll be an button in there somewhee that lets you install a driver (or reinstall). As you do this, you need to select the option that says something like "Display a list of the known drivers for this device" (or words to that effect). You then need to tell it to use the driver for Standard CD-ROM.
See how you get on with that. If you're seeing the yellow '!' then the OS can see the device OK but it just can't tell it what to do.
------------------"One does not simply walk into Mordor."Rob's Place